Earlier this year I had to phone Revenue Canada for some information before I could file my taxes. The automated voice told me I was in queue and the estimated wait time was something like 3 hours. I hung up, phoned back, "accidentally" pressed the number for french and did the whole "Whoops I must have pressed french by accident...". They're required to take your call once they have you and the nice lady on the other end solved my problem in about 5 minutes tops.

If you're in Canada and you need something from a bilingual government agency (particularly Revenue Canada) don't wait in queue on the English side of things. Hang up, phone back and press the number for french.

A friend who was terrible with money had one of those pre-approved credit cards with a super high interest rate and fees. After getting a consolidation loan to pay off all his credit cards he tried to cancel them. Most of the companies did it with no problem but one would put him on hold indefinitely when he'd call and say he wanted to cancel his card. I was at his house one night when he put it on speakerphone and they dropped his call around 11pm, which was about five hours after he called. In the end he reported the card lost, which got him through to a CSR right away and then told them to not send a replacement and close the account. Until that, he played the on hold game several nights so probably totaled over ten hours on hold. Just another reason to never get a credit card from one of those shady companies.

shroom:Owangotang: I briefly worked as a call center rep for Redbox about 5 years ago. People would routinely call us, and remain on hold, for upwards of 10 minutes over a $1 charge. Many ended up holding for nearly a half hour.

Me? If I buy a product for a $1 and it was unsatisfactory I am just never buying that product again. Why compound the loss by spending time arguing over $1? I will never understand that.

Because I want the product I paid $1 for. If it's not that big a deal, you wouldn't mind if I just stole $1 out of your pocket. Because it's just $1. Right?

If you stole a dollar out of my pocket and I was able to immediately confront you and force a resolution then of course I would. If you stole a dollar out of my pocket and I did not discover it until later and, consequently, had to spend my time attempting to file a police report over the matter I wouldn't.

Owangotang:I briefly worked as a call center rep for Redbox about 5 years ago. People would routinely call us, and remain on hold, for upwards of 10 minutes over a $1 charge. Many ended up holding for nearly a half hour.

Me? If I buy a product for a $1 and it was unsatisfactory I am just never buying that product again. Why compound the loss by spending time arguing over $1? I will never understand that.

Because I want the product I paid $1 for. If it's not that big a deal, you wouldn't mind if I just stole $1 out of your pocket. Because it's just $1. Right?

How blindingly stupid do you have to be to ORDER an iPod Nano from Target dot com?Instead, get in the car, take some cash with you, drive to Target, pick out your Nano, give cash to clerk, get change, drive home, wrap gift.No paperwork, no theft, and boyfriend is happy with how smart and efficient you are.